Process Improvement

Grades: Students can choose to explore course videos, discussions, and ungraded assignments for free, but they won’t be able to submit graded assignments, earn a certificate, or complete a specialization without paying a $79 fee.

Instructor: Gopesh Anand

Credentials: Anand is an award-winning teacher who is currently the associate professor of business administration at the University of Illinois’ College of Business. Holding a Ph.D. in operations management from Ohio State, Anand has been named among the “List of Excellent of Teachers” at the school for the past six consecutive years, along with being named the school’s MBA Professor of the Year in 2011. His research interests include operations strategy and continuous improvement and his recent work has been published by Production and Operations Management and the International Journal of Operations and Production Management.

Description: Everyone has heard terms like six sigma and lean management? But what do they mean? How do they work? And how can they be used to reduce costly bottlenecks and redundancies? This course focuses on process, a set of interconnected steps that establish what, how, where, and when tasks are completed. Using contexts ranging from product development to manufacturing and distribution, students will learn how to think about process and gain technical tools for making them “more cost-effective, dependable, responsive, and flexible.” In addition, the course will train students to conduct root cause analysis, establish priorities, manage change, and identify potential synergies between processes and partners to further improve operations. The course will feature video lectures and readings, with learning reinforced through quizzes.

Review: “This is a comprehensive course on process improvement with practical examples. Dr. Gopesh Anand is an excellent orator who explains even most difficult areas of the course with ease. I have had taken lean six sigma training from private organisations earlier, but this course offers definitely more insight to process improvement, which comes from the empirical research experience of Dr. Anand. I would strongly recommend this course to all process improvement professionals.” For additional reviews, click here.

Additional Note: This is the fourth of seven courses in the University of Illinois’ “Value Chain Management” specialization. To learn more about this specialization and register for it, click here.